Roger Helmer

Roger Helmer is a Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands of Great Britain. He represents the Conservative Party, and has used his position on the European Parliament to fight increased regulation of member states through the European Union. Helmer has also aligned himself closely with conservative groups in the United States and was a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change (2009) hosted by the conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute.

Climate Skeptic
Helmer is a climate change skeptic, who opposes increased EU regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, including the proposed cap and trade system. His critics, including UK Labour Party MEP Richard Corbett, point out an interesting "correlation between Euroscepticism and climate change denial. Almost the only climate change deniers in the European Parliament are the hard-right of the Tory party" including Roger Helmer. Corbett theories that perhaps this correlation occurs "because tackling man-made climate change has emerged as an issue that cannot be tackled effectively by nation states, but where international or EU action is most effective. It may be that their opposition is not to tackling climate change, but because they worry that it will give the EU more legitimacy." Helmer has written a new book called "Sceptic at Large" which describes Edward Wegman author of the notorious Wegman Report as "arguably the most prominent statistician in the US".

Helmer sits on the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on Climate Change, which produced a policy document entitled ‘2050: The future begins today – Recommendations for the EU's future integrated policy on climate change’. His own account of his interventions are an indicator of his scientific illiteracy. Such as " future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations from current levels will have only a marginal effect on climate"

Helmer's brand of climate scepticism was criticized in an open letter to David Cameron by Labour MEPs as an example of how the tory party is not as green as it likes to pretend.

Helmer pretends to understand climate science but there is clearly an ideological dimension in his approach. In an article entitled "The Wickedness of the climate change deniers" published on a denial website Helmer sets up a straw man argument disputing the link between CO2 and temperature rise, although, perhaps with care, he stops short of denying the greenhouse effect. In short his writings on the subject are designed to confuse the issue, and not to inform. 

Helmer, a prominent member of the Taxpayers Alliance has misused £9000 of taxpayer's money to fund his own climate denying billboard campaign

Quotes

 * (On windfarms) "We oppose them both locally and nationally." 
 * I believe, AGW is simply a kind of collective hysteria with no basis in science or in fact, 
 * the world has experienced no global warming for a decade, with average global temperatures static or declining since 1998 
 * future increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations from current levels will have only a marginal effect on climate.
 * “climate deniers” do not exist 
 * "Until recent years, everyone understood that climate was multifactorial, and it was clear that the primary drivers were solar activity and astronomical cycles." 
 * "the infamous “Hockey Stick” graph, one of the most discredited artefacts in the history of science." 
 * "it’s the temperature driving the CO2, and not, as Gore wrongly asserts, the CO2 driving the temperature. The records clearly show the CO2 graph around 800 years or so behind the temperature graph."
 * "today’s atmospheric CO2 levels are remarkably – indeed dangerously – low."
 * "the oceans will not become acid as they absorb CO2"

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Global warming skeptics
 * Heartland Institute
 * International Conference on Climate Change (2009)
 * SourceWatch:Project:Creating Articles on Sponsors and Speakers at The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

External resources

 * Submission to UK Parliamentary 'Climategate' Enquiry http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/387we15.htm
 * Profile on Heartland Institute document
 * Tory MEP advises palm oil lobbyists how best to neuter Brussels http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/02/roger-helmer-palm-oil-lobbyists

External Articles
Global warmists abandoned fact for fancy http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/24/around-the-world-the-fight-against-cli-mate-change/?page=1